Complete Plays, The

by William Shakespeare

  And that the king before the Douglas’ rage

  Stoop’d his anointed head as low as death.

  This have I rumour’d through the peasant towns

  Between that royal field of Shrewsbury

  And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,

  Where Hotspur’s father, old Northumberland,

  Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,

  And not a man of them brings other news

  Than they have learn’d of me: from Rumour’s tongues

  They bring smooth comforts false, worse than

  true wrongs.

  Exit

  ACT I

  SCENE I. THE SAME.

  Enter Lord Bardolph

  Lord Bardolph

  Who keeps the gate here, ho?

  The Porter opens the gate

  Where is the earl?

  Porter

  What shall I say you are?

  Lord Bardolph

  Tell thou the earl

  That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

  Porter

  His lordship is walk’d forth into the orchard;

  Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,

  And he himself wilt answer.

  Enter Northumberland

  Lord Bardolph

  Here comes the earl.

  Exit Porter

  Northumberland

  What news, Lord Bardolph? every minute now

  Should be the father of some stratagem:

  The times are wild: contention, like a horse

  Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose

  And bears down all before him.

  Lord Bardolph

  Noble earl,

  I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.

  Northumberland

  Good, an God will!

  Lord Bardolph

  As good as heart can wish:

  The king is almost wounded to the death;

  And, in the fortune of my lord your son,

  Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts

  Kill’d by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John

  And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field;

  And Harry Monmouth’s brawn, the hulk Sir John,

  Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day,

  So fought, so follow’d and so fairly won,

  Came not till now to dignify the times,

  Since Caesar’s fortunes!

  Northumberland

  How is this derived?

  Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?

  Lord Bardolph

  I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,

  A gentleman well bred and of good name,

  That freely render’d me these news for true.

  Northumberland

  Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent

  On Tuesday last to listen after news.

  Enter Travers

  Lord Bardolph

  My lord, I over-rode him on the way;

  And he is furnish’d with no certainties

  More than he haply may retail from me.

  Northumberland

  Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?

  Travers

  My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn’d me back

  With joyful tidings; and, being better horsed,

  Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard

  A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,

  That stopp’d by me to breathe his bloodied horse.

  He ask’d the way to Chester; and of him

  I did demand what news from Shrewsbury:

  He told me that rebellion had bad luck

  And that young Harry Percy’s spur was cold.

  With that, he gave his able horse the head,

  And bending forward struck his armed heels

  Against the panting sides of his poor jade

  Up to the rowel-head, and starting so

  He seem’d in running to devour the way,

  Staying no longer question.

  Northumberland

  Ha! Again:

  Said he young Harry Percy’s spur was cold?

  Of Hotspur Coldspur? that rebellion

  Had met ill luck?

  Lord Bardolph

  My lord, I’ll tell you what;

  If my young lord your son have not the day,

  Upon mine honour, for a silken point

  I’ll give my barony: never talk of it.

  Northumberland

  Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers

  Give then such instances of loss?

  Lord Bardolph

  Who, he?

  He was some hilding fellow that had stolen

  The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,

  Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.

  Enter Morton

  Northumberland

  Yea, this man’s brow, like to a title-leaf,

  Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:

  So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood

  Hath left a witness’d usurpation.

  Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

  Morton

  I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;

  Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask

  To fright our party.

  Northumberland

  How doth my son and brother?

  Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek

  Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.

  Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,

  So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,

  Drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night,

  And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;

  But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,

  And I my Percy’s death ere thou report’st it.

  This thou wouldst say, ‘Your son did thus and thus;

  Your brother thus: so fought the noble Douglas:’

  Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:

  But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,

  Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,

  Ending with ‘Brother, son, and all are dead.’

  Morton

  Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;

  But, for my lord your son —

  Northumberland

  Why, he is dead.

  See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!

  He that but fears the thing he would not know

  Hath by instinct knowledge from others’ eyes

  That what he fear’d is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;

  Tell thou an earl his divination lies,

  And I will take it as a sweet disgrace

  And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.

  Morton

  You are too great to be by me gainsaid:

  Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.

  Northumberland

  Yet, for all this, say not that Percy’s dead.

  I see a strange confession in thine eye:

  Thou shakest thy head and hold’st it fear or sin

  To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so;

  The tongue offends not that reports his death:

  And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,

  Not he which says the dead is not alive.

  Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news

  Hath but a losing office, and his tongue

  Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,

  Remember’d tolling a departing friend.

  Lord Bardolph

  I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.

  Morton

  I am sorry I should force you to believe

  That which I would to God I had not seen;

  But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,

  Rendering faint quittance, wearied and out-breathed,

  To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down

  The never-daunted Percy to the
earth,

  From whence with life he never more sprung up.

  In few, his death, whose spirit lent a fire

  Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,

  Being bruited once, took fire and heat away

  From the best temper’d courage in his troops;

  For from his metal was his party steel’d;

  Which once in him abated, all the rest

  Turn’d on themselves, like dull and heavy lead:

  And as the thing that’s heavy in itself,

  Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed,

  So did our men, heavy in Hotspur’s loss,

  Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear

  That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim

  Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,

  Fly from the field. Then was the noble Worcester

  Too soon ta’en prisoner; and that furious Scot,

  The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword

  Had three times slain the appearance of the king,

  ’Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame

  Of those that turn’d their backs, and in his flight,

  Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all

  Is that the king hath won, and hath sent out

  A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,

  Under the conduct of young Lancaster

  And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.

  Northumberland

  For this I shall have time enough to mourn.

  In poison there is physic; and these news,

  Having been well, that would have made me sick,

  Being sick, have in some measure made me well:

  And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken’d joints,

  Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,

  Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire

  Out of his keeper’s arms, even so my limbs,

  Weaken’d with grief, being now enraged with grief,

  Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!

  A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel

  Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif!

  Thou art a guard too wanton for the head

  Which princes, flesh’d with conquest, aim to hit.

  Now bind my brows with iron; and approach

  The ragged’st hour that time and spite dare bring

  To frown upon the enraged Northumberland!

  Let heaven kiss earth! now let not Nature’s hand

  Keep the wild flood confined! let order die!

  And let this world no longer be a stage

  To feed contention in a lingering act;

  But let one spirit of the first-born Cain

  Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set

  On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,

  And darkness be the burier of the dead!

  Travers

  This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

  Lord Bardolph

  Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

  Morton

  The lives of all your loving complices

  Lean on your health; the which, if you give o’er

  To stormy passion, must perforce decay.

  You cast the event of war, my noble lord,

  And summ’d the account of chance, before you said

  ‘Let us make head.’ It was your presurmise,

  That, in the dole of blows, your son might drop:

  You knew he walk’d o’er perils, on an edge,

  More likely to fall in than to get o’er;

  You were advised his flesh was capable

  Of wounds and scars and that his forward spirit

  Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged:

  Yet did you say ‘Go forth;’ and none of this,

  Though strongly apprehended, could restrain

  The stiff-borne action: what hath then befallen,

  Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,

  More than that being which was like to be?

  Lord Bardolph

  We all that are engaged to this loss

  Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas

  That if we wrought our life ’twas ten to one;

  And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed

  Choked the respect of likely peril fear’d;

  And since we are o’erset, venture again.

  Come, we will all put forth, body and goods.

  Morton

  ’Tis more than time: and, my most noble lord,

  I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,

  The gentle Archbishop of York is up

  With well-appointed powers: he is a man

  Who with a double surety binds his followers.

  My lord your son had only but the corpse,

  But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;

  For that same word, rebellion, did divide

  The action of their bodies from their souls;

  And they did fight with queasiness, constrain’d,

  As men drink potions, that their weapons only

  Seem’d on our side; but, for their spirits and souls,

  This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,

  As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop

  Turns insurrection to religion:

  Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,

  He’s followed both with body and with mind;

  And doth enlarge his rising with the blood

  Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret stones;

  Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;

  Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,

  Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;

  And more and less do flock to follow him.

  Northumberland

  I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,

  This present grief had wiped it from my mind.

  Go in with me; and counsel every man

  The aptest way for safety and revenge:

  Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed:

  Never so few, and never yet more need.

  Exeunt

  SCENE II. LONDON. A STREET.

  Enter Falstaff, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler

  Falstaff

  Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

  Page

  He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water; but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for.

  Falstaff

  Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more than I invent or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now: but I will inset you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel,— the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, ’tis not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he’ll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he’s almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about the satin for my short cloak and my slops?

  Page

  He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his band and yours; he liked not the security.

  Falstaff

  Let him be damned,
like the glutton! pray God his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security! The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is through with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with security. I looked a’ should have sent me two and twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him. Where’s Bardolph?

  Page

  He’s gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.

  Falstaff

  I bought him in Paul’s, and he’ll buy me a horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

  Enter the Lord Chief-Justice and Servant

  Page

  Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the

  Prince for striking him about Bardolph.

  Falstaff

  Wait, close; I will not see him.

  Lord Chief-Justice

  What’s he that goes there?

  Servant

  Falstaff, an’t please your lordship.

  Lord Chief-Justice

  He that was in question for the robbery?

  Servant

  He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the Lord John of Lancaster.

  Lord Chief-Justice

  What, to York? Call him back again.

  Servant

  Sir John Falstaff!

  Falstaff

  Boy, tell him I am deaf.

  Page

  You must speak louder; my master is deaf.

  Lord Chief-Justice

  I am sure he is, to the hearing of any thing good.

  Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

  Servant

  Sir John!

  Falstaff

  What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not wars? is there not employment? doth not the king lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.

  Servant

  You mistake me, sir.

  Falstaff

  Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat, if I had said so.

  Servant

  I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and our soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man.

  Falstaff

  I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! if thou gettest any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt counter: hence! avaunt!